Throw it Away

Dear S---,

I want to tell you a story, but I'm not sure where to begin. Does it begin on a Saturday afternoon, seven years ago, when my mother gave me an ornate golden locket, and told me to keep the picture of someone I loved inside it, or during that study session eight months later, when I finally decided whose picture would go inside the dusty trinket sitting in the bottom of my sock drawer? Does it begin with a love letter I wrote and re-wrote a dozen times before loosing my nerve, or the sound of fencing foils strinking each other? Does it begin when you saw the picture, or when I threw the picture away?

For a long time, I was convinced it should begin with the words, "there are no such things as miracles". I told myself that many times; so many that I once contemplated carving the words into my forearm with a caligraphy pen. It's the kind of morbid gesture I imagine you'd appreciate, but in the end I was too cowardly to do it. If someone had seen it...well, suffice to say there's not enough privacy in those locker room showers to leave one's open wounds in plain sight. No, I don't think that's quite true--for me, there was nowhere private enough for that. If I had to begin the story with fresh wounds, I could never have told it at all.

In the end, I decided to begin it like this:

There is something very important that you don't know about me; something I kept hidden for a long time. I've always been terrified that you would discover it, and that it would end our friendship completely. It isn't what you're thinking; I never told you face to face, but circumstance saw to it that you learned about the locket anyway. This secret is much less complex, and much more dangerous than the one I wore around my neck:

I know what kind of woman you are. I know that you hurt me intentionally, like a child holding a microscope over an ant, waiting for it to burst into flames. I know that you savored my unhappiness. I know that you resent me, perhaps even hate me for who I am. I also know that however much you do, you hate yourself that much more.

I think that, given enough time, I might be able to forgive you for what you've done to me. Then again, I suppose that would only solidify my arrogance to you. Jury, the Great and Terrible, taking pity on poor, wounded Shiori. Would it only make you hate me more? Either way, it seems we may never be able to be friends as we once were. So now, I suppose the only thing that remains is to tell you how this little story of mine is going to end:

I grew up. I was able to let go, and I find myself infinitely happeir having done so. I can only hope that you might be able to do the same, someday. That the weight of your own misery might be lifed from your breast and opened, and revealed to you. Then, perhaps, you might be able to throw it away.

With Love Always,

J